AN OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNING BODY OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES
Dear Sirs -
Most likely you and your pundits follow carefully this site and others like it on the internet. Of course you consider that those who dare participate in these forums are guilty of apostasy against your organization. That is an accurate assumption perhaps, in the way you define the word. But not as it is correctly defined. Apostasy means to ’leave or abandon one’s beliefs’. Some on this forum have left your religion, others have not done so, and perhaps never will. Yet others continue to accept your doctrine and religion but are deeply disturbed by actions by you and your direct representatives.
I suggest that you can greatly benefit your people by paying careful attention to what is said here. Your organization is tyrannical. Your policies oppress and hurt people. You twist scriptures to support these actions. You are no stranger to ‘new light’. Why not use this new light doctrine to actually improve the organization? Thus fewer would be here looking for solace from the wrongs going on there. Why not use New Light to reform instead of repress? I suggest the following areas of concern to begin with;
In the midst of your organization are some ’rocks for stumbling’. You could effect actions that would remove these - and thus improve the organization. I refer to the pedophiles that are hidden there due to wrong-headed policy and misapplication of ancient Jewish laws.
Your ‘elders’ are poorly trained substitutes for ‘teachers and instructors’ in God’s word. They have no compassionate understanding of the human spirit, and no training in dealing with broken marriages, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse. They admittedly cannot read the human heart - yet are instructed to do so repeatedly in judging their brothers. Rather than application of ‘healing balm’, they are harsh taskmasters. And they are in this, a direct reflection of you, who sit high on ivory towers and enact dictum that established sins definition based on a two-thirds majority vote.
Past sins are covered over in hypocritical duplicity. Your association with the United Nations after calling it the ‘Blasphemous imitation of God’s Kingdom has been hidden, then glossed over, and finally lied about to your flock. Your association with other religions in legal wrangling with the courts to prevent the paying of sales taxes, your investment in the war machine, your lies and misrepresentation to governments about your doctrines on blood transfusions, your tolerance of bribery among the Mexican brothers while watching the Malawi brothers die, your use of deception in translation of the New World Translation.
Your heartless disfellowshipping policy. Rather than show love and concern at the time of a fellow worshiper’s failing, lifting him up with love and tender mercy, you cast him to the rocks below as if he is Judas, when in fact most of the time his sins resemble Peter’s sins. Then unlike Jesus, you establish a Pharisee-like time stipulation for forgiveness, you make the person appear to be a shameless, hateful, promiscuous person to the congregational gossipers. You tear family away from him/her during the process, giving him no one to turn to, making him perhaps more susceptible to the weakness of his flesh than he was to begin with.
I suggest to you, that modification of these policies and admission to these ‘sins’ openly, would do more for your organization than any other action you could take. By beginning to act like Christians in this respect, from the top down, you could begin to heal the wounds of many within. You might make your organization actually attractive to others also.
Don’t get me wrong. I hate your organization. But mostly I hate it for the things I mention above. And I venture that both myself and hundreds of thousands who have fled your organization would not have done so had you been actually imitating Jesus as you claim. I call here for apology and reform. I don’t believe such will atone for all the wrong you have done. But, if you really have the interest of your people at heart, and that is in doubt, you will do the right thing, You will admit wrong, You will correct wrong doctrine. You will stop creating needless pain for those within your ranks only interested in worshipping God alongside you. You might actually cease being a cult in time, and join Christianity.
The beauty of it goes even beyond that. Here in the forbidden zone of the internet, dwell thousands of intelligent people, former Witnesses themselves, who have excised a superabundance of reality and understanding from the festering wound that was left when they emerged from your cult. In the pages of this website, and in the pages of countless other sites, can be mined a correct [or closer at least] understanding of nearly every doctrine you have misapplied, every verse you have mistranslated, and every lie you have told. Some of these persons have made it a life career, have obtained degrees in Biblical languages, have dug deeply into the pages of religious history and into your own sordid history. You don’t even have to do the research. It is all here, or somewhere in cyberspace or in hard print books to be found. You can correct and admit the errors - specifically. You can correct the misunderstandings of scripture. You can begin to act like Christians in this and in your future treatment of others.
I doubt you will - but I don’t doubt that you have read this. You will lose a sizable part of your people either way. They are exiting faster than you can bring them in now. Why not be honest. The Worldwide Church of God did it. You know all about that of course. One way or the other you will eventually fall to history and be known as a deluded little sectarian religion that eventually crumbled. No more or no less. You won’t even be accorded a full page mention in the books on religious history a few hundred years from now. Your Apocalypse will have failed. You will have failed. But you could be known for having done the right thing and made the right admissions.
I have very little doubt that you are sincere. We used to address that matter of 'sincerity' at the doors with scriptures that show that sincere people do not necessarily please God. You are certainly not pleasing Him now, in spite of sincerity. Actions that show love and concern and good intent might.
You are writing the history. Will you be listed with Hitler and Stalin, or will yours be a favorable footnote? The choice is yours.
Jeff
